Over a lifetime there is a potential for the development of many different types of proliferative diseases in solid tissues characterized by the loss of cellular growth control, such as cancer, psoriasis, or keloid tissue. The diseased tissues and organs are often characterized by either higher than normal rate of proliferation of the affected cells (usually at the expense of the surrounding normal cells) or the inability to stop proliferating when so signaled by appropriate signaling mechanisms often activated by differentiation-inducing agents. Since in unhealthy and healthy tissues expression of various genes usually differs only quantitatively but not qualitatively, it is extremely difficult to employ a particular kind of chemotherapy that selectively destroys only the non-healthy tissue. This is one reason that only few effective monotherapies exist against any of these diseases that would be relatively free of toxic side effects.
Therefore, in recent years various combination chemotherapies have become standard procedures to attack these proliferative diseases, particularly cancers. While combination therapies are usually more effective than treatments with single agents, they are often even more toxic than monotherapies that usually act via a single mechanism. Thus, it would be desirable to develop new anti-proliferative agents that add to the effects of known chemotherapies and simultaneously decrease the usual side effects such as significant weight loss accompanied by fatigue. For that purpose, embodiments of the present invention provide a class of chemically synthesized agents and alkaline phosphatase, particularly the placental type alkaline phosphatase, both alone or in combination.